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Here's How Weezer Ended Up on Vic Mensa's 'The Autobiography'

Trace William Cowen is a writer based in Los Angeles. He tweets with dramatic irregularity here.

Jul 28, 2017

Vic Mensa's debut album The Autobiography is now available anywhere albums can be streamed, and it features a genre-hopping assortment of guests. Chief Keef, Pharrell Williams, Pusha T, and Syd all make memorable appearances on the long-awaited 13-track release. But one collaboration in particular, "Homewrecker," has fans looking all the way back to a 1996 cult classic.

On the track, Mensa recalls a relationship gone very much awry over a version of the bridge to Weezer's Pinkerton single "The Good Life." The band—particularly frontman Rivers Cuomo—is known for performing and/or writing for a wide variety of other artists, ranging from Lil Wayne to motherfucking Sugar Ray. For Mensa's rock-forward Autobiography track, the collaboration started with the Roc Nation recruit's love of Pinkerton as, first and foremost, a fan.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Mensa revealed he wanted to make sure he wasn't rapping on "like three-note trap beats and shit" on the album, which is executive produced by the one and only No I.D. Mensa was eventually introduced to Pinkerton by producer Papi Beatz, who put the record on during a cruise through Los Angeles during the Autobiography recording sessions. Now, Mensa said, it's his favorite Weezer album.

In a previous interview with Clash last year, Mensa—who, at the time, was still referring to the album as Traffic—opened up about the song’s meaning and detailed a studio session with Cuomo that resulted in the Weezer singer adding new vocals to the track. "I was with this girl for four years and we just loved each other to a point of extreme hate sometimes," Mensa said. "It's really crazy, you know. And that relationship and how volatile and at times beautiful [it was]." After the "Good Life" loop was built, Cuomo invited Mensa to his studio and ended up loving it "so much he laid down some vocals at the end of the song."

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Hear the final product in the video up top. The Autobiography is available now.